


Metalivore

by Miller5526



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime
Genre: Blackmail, Cannibalism, Confusion, Hiding, Mental Instability, Metal eating monsters, Original Character(s), Other, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-21
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-05-16 03:38:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19309858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miller5526/pseuds/Miller5526
Summary: White Eyes was definitely a strange mech, he tended to keep his distance (physically) from his comrades, and it seemed like he never refuled but his armour was always the toughest around. Every so often he would disappear and no one knew where he went off to. Until one day when Miko decides she had enough with the secrets, and followed him.(I don't own transformers or any of it's characters)





	1. White Eyes

It was just like a normal day, the base was in a peaceful quiet while Miko, Bulkhead, and Wheeljack were off doing who knows what together. Jack was talking with Optimus who was simultaneously doing something on the advanced computer in the base. Raf was doing homework, and Ratchet was in the medbay fixing up Arcee.

Slowly, weak vibrations rippled through the concrete floor. Anyone not expecting this probably would've got up and started running, but this was just a part of their every day. No one stopped what they were doing to acknowledge the vibrations that slowly morphed into earthquakes and loud thumps on the ground. They just adapted as Raf picked up his water bottle that was close to falling off of his table without even looking at it.

It was only when the vibrations abruptly stopped that caught everyone's attention. 

Raf looked up from his calculus homework to see a giant white and grey mech. His build was bulky and he was 3 feet taller than Optimus, his optics glowing an intense white, and his battlemask was constantly drawn. 

When the humans were first introduced to White Eyes they were terrified of him, heck they were kinda terrified of Optimus when they first saw him, but at least he had inviting colors and baby blue eyes. But White Eyes had seemed like a behemoth, his optics seemed to stare down at them with disgust, and he stood as still as a statue, like a soldier ready for the signal to end their pathetic lives.

When in reality, White Eyes was much like Bulkhead, he was older by a couple hundred vorns, just a little younger than Ratchet, who was an older brother figure to him. But when he first met those fragile bipedal organics he didn't know what to do. He was so big and awkward, one misstep could end their short lives prematurely. He understood that they were going to be afraid of him, Bumblebee had even been a little weary of him for the first breem, but quickly saw his real personality.

Raf smiled and discarded his pencil in favor of waving to the white mech, who looked at him and gave a small wave in return. Optimus glanced back to make sure nothing was wrong, and when he was met with white optics he nodded his helm in a greeting, in which the other much returned. No words were exchanged in favor for the accepted peace around them. 

With a surprising amount of carefulness, White Eyes walked to the nearest open area and sat on the floor, leaning his back against the wall. The silence had seemed to pave it's way back over the group for a couple more minutes. The white mech's optics dimming as he fell into a meditative state. 

Suddenly, his optics brightened as he heard something that no one else could hear. Once he realised what it was, he dropped his helm against the wall in what seemed to be exasperatio, the ting of that action the only warning before the doors to the base seemingly flew open to reveal a pair of dusty mechs, loud rock music, and an eccentric Japanese teenager who quickly jumped out of the dark green all terrain truck.

"Bulk is the best dune basher EVER!"

Jack groaned while Raf winced as their peace was practically ripped out of their hands, it wasn't that they hated Miko, it's just that when she's around silence and peace became a commodity. 

The two rough and dusty mechs quickly transformed and chest bumped in an old war buddy, but also goofy way, making a loud clang ring through the room, and the ground shook with their landing. Now, White Eyes had slowly warmed up to the humans that had become friends with his comrades over the time, but it seemed he would always be weary around them no matter what.

He was painfully reminded of this as Miko locked her sights on his giant white and silver frame that was slumped against the wall. He knew what she was going to do because she had tried it so many times, but he had somehow managed to convince her not too. It was only when he saw her actually running towards him that he realised he wouldn't be able to change her mind, as she was too hyper.

So, mentally sighing, he locked every gear and plate on his chassis as she quickly grabbed onto one of the many ridges throughout his build that apparently made him perfect for climbing. The only movement coming from him was his optics watching her, trying to calculate every move she made, waiting for her to slip and fall. He was so intent in making sure that she didn't hurt herself, that he somehow failed to notice Ratchet and Arcee leaving the medbay.

Suddenly an orange servo entered his feild of vision and he had to stop himself from retracting his facemask with the metal so near him in his hunger. His frame jolted slightly at the override, but everyone around him just took it as the sudden appearence of Ratchet next to the safety engrossed White Eyes. 

He normally goes out to the junkyard while everyone else is in recharge, and his large frame never seemed satisfied with the metal on this planet, they weren't rich enough, and for him to be fully satisfied would probably take a whole skyscraper filled with scrap metal. Last night he missed his meal as well, there was an attack on a nearby energon mine and he is always needed in the battlefield.

His plating was so thick from constantly consuming metal, which slowly added to the layers. At this point he could take 5 consecutive hits point blank from Megatron and only have a small scorch. But he never actually told this to Optimus because it was the prime's destiny to take down the decepticons, not his. White Eyes has suspected that Optimus knew this, but he hasn't said or done anything, so neither has he.

White Eyes kept his facemask up because it blocks out a large amount of the alluring scent of his fellow cybertronians alloy. He has tried so many different ways to hide the fact that he relies on cannibalism to function, he tried only drinking energon, which had actually made his circuts fritz after the third day, he has starved himself on man occasions, but that never ended well. Once when he had just finished a very intense battle on the moon of a toxic purple planet, he had blacked out and consumed the corpse of a nearby decepticon. 

Shuddering at the thought, he brought his mind back to the present.

"-practice climbing, do you WANT me falling when I climb more dangerious things, you cranky excuse for a medic!"

It seemed that Miko didn't take too kindly to being pulled off of her new jungle gym. Exventing, White Eyes unlocked himself and slowly stood up, his joints hitching at angles so familiar to him that he was able to make it look smooth to an outsider. Omce he was on his pedds, he looked to Ratchet who was paying little attention to the femme human in his grasp. Silently thanking him over his comm link, he carefully made his way over to the door leading to the outside world.

No one sawhis actions as odd or off, it was a part of their daily routine. The doors opened at the exact same time his chronometer told him it was 8PM that ment the sun was setting, he went out every night at the exact same time. There used to be questions about why that is, but he had managed to dodge those very skillfully and it hasn't been questioned since.

With the doors closing behind him, he carefully transformed into his alt mode, with such a large frame, the only thing he was able to find that accomidated his size was a city bus that was slightly smaller then normal.

There was still a little light out so he decided to activate his holoform of a middle aged man with a navy blue cap that came down to his eyebrows. And started off to the relatively small town. Whenever he did this he would wonder on the streets until he saw a drunk (there was always intoxicated humans at this time) stumbling their way on the sidewalk (or even in the middle of the streets) stop next to them and open his doors, usually they stumble in without even paying, which he wouldn't take money anyway so he didn't care. And he would give them a safe travel home, either to their angry significant other, or to an empty house that cried of happier days.

White Eyes had been doing this ever since he understood his alt mode and how humans intoxicate themselves. He thought it was always like this, with dark and depressing aspects everywhere. It was only when he had to give Jack a ride home one day that he saw smaller humans running in the grass with friends and happiness practically beaming off of them that he realised there was not in these creatures. 

He drifted into his thoughts as he unconsciously wondered throughout the town and serrvicing these fragile beings. Slowly, the sun finished its decent and he realised it was 9PM.

Suddenly, his tank lurched and he was forced to transform to root mode. Thankfully he had just dropped someone off at their residence that was a safe distance from civilization. Bending over, gripping his abdomen, his optics flickered, then completely dimmed. 

He felt primal programming trying to come to take over, deep inside his spark painfully fluttered at the influx of emotions that bombarded him at once. He felt hunger, selfhatred, hopelessness, and fear all striking him at once. Warnings started flashing in his field and suddenly his conscious just fadded.

His optics slowly fadded from the dim white light to an unearthly black that belonged to the void. Slowly streatching to his full height he turned in the direction that held the metal that he hungered for most, but he still held some sort of control over his body and he turned in the opposite direction, towards the junk yard that had been abandoned years ago. It resided deep within uninhabited areas so he didn't feel remorse upon eating from the dead vehicles and scrap metal that resided there. 

Upon entering he felt his processor immediately scan everything in the surroundings, trying to find the purest metal that would satisfy his needs. As he essentially let go and slowed his coding to eat as much as possible, he noticed the junk yard was becoming less and less of a junk yard, and more like an abandoned parking lot with how thorough he was cleaning up the area.

Internally he sighed as he realised that he would either have to hold back, or find a new source of food. He picked up a wagon that looked like one he had seen human offspring sit in and squeal with joy as their currier or sire pulled them around in. Before he knew what he was doing he was tearing it apart with the metal ripping denta he was created with.

'I'm a monster, there's no getting around it. I was born a monster and I an still one.'

He pondered his existance for a while, the thought of how he would fit in better with the decepticons popped into his processors once or twice, but he had quickly gotten rid of it, that type of thinking would lead him to join the decepticons eventually, and that just wasn't him.

As his hands transformed into their true form he felt his spark dim even more with dread, how could he even face these simple innocent organics when he was a... a cannibal. 

Ripping into an old rust covered truck, he suddenly stopped. He smelled something, something different, something new, something woNDERFUL!

His helm whipping to the side, he saw what it was and tried his hardest to gain control of his chassis as quick as possible.

Standing there, staring at him with fear and dread, was a vehicon. By the looks of the energon dripping throughout it's frame and it's tore plating, it had lost it's way to safety during the last battle. And that mistake normally could've been solved, easily. But as soon as it had stumbled upon the metalivore active in his basic coding, he was literally scrap metal.

White Eyes tried so hard to contain the hunger, but that was hard when he felt like he was starving and there was the equivalent of a fresh apple pie in front of him, just asking to be tore apart and eaten. 

The sounds of metallic screams in the night were drown out by living metal being punctured and ripped into multiple pieces viciously.


	2. The Proposal

White Eyes woke with a start. Jerking up on his metal berth the last thing he remembered was half of the vehicon's spark in his clawed servo, the other half was behind his denta, glossa savoring the taste of the food he craved. Fear spiked through his whole frame as he realised his primal coding brought him to the base.

His chronometer told him it was noon, jumping out of his berth he didn't really care if he shook the ground with his frantic foot fall, but he needed to know that his comrades were fine.

Then, finally he arrived in the main room to find Ratchet working at the computer disgussing something with Optimus. Everything was fine, looking around the room a little more he realised everyone was accounted for. Until he realised there was a strange lack of Arcee. Spark pulsing in anxiety, he walked up to Optimus trying not to show his emotions. Raising his servo to the prime's shoulder, it was with a gasp that he realised his claws were still extended and he quickly commanded then to transform down to normal looking servos.

Shuddering at how careless he seems to have gotten he mentally checked to make sure that nothing else on his body screamed monster before raising his now normal servo back to the shoulder and giving it a few taps.

Optimus turned enough to see the white plating, then with his attention fully focused on the timid bot he turned to face him.

"Yes, White Eyes"

Even with the ever constant reminder of the monster he is in the back of his processor, he still respected the authority that the prime held in his voice. Listen to the prime, respect the prime, adhere to the prime. These were all still in his basic cybertronians programming, he mentally heard a very faint 'devour the prime' in the back of his processor, but he didn't pay it any attention, pushing the intrusive thoughts aside. 

"Where is Arcee?"

White Eyes felt a minute swell of pride at the fact that he was able to keep any sense of emotion out of his voice. The Prime didn't have to give his response much thought.

"She went out for a drive, said she needed to cool off."

Relaxing ever so slightly, released that she was fine, but also not wanting to show his reaction to the others as he believed he seemed suspicious enough, he didn't normally talk much, didn't like opening his metal piercing denta filled mouth near his comrades. He was mostly the strong but silent type, and he liked that. 

"Alrig-"

He froze as soft flesh touched his right pedd, fear striking through his backstruts to his whole chassis and he very carefully looked down to the human that had caught his attention in a way he was highly unfamiliar with, contact. He could handle it if he knew it was coming, but as soon as its unexpected, his inner metalivore peaked out of the curtain telling him how careless he was getting, letting prey sneak up on him. He hated the way his processor worked.

He balked a little bit when he saw that it was June Darby, Jack's currier, who was calling for his attention. Apparently it was her day off and she decided to spend it at base, wanting to get to know the friends that her creation had better. Carefully he began to crouch down to a more comfortable height for the human and gave her a small nod in greeting. She gave a small smile to him as she spoke.

"Why is it that your armor is so thick. I'm pretty sure Dreadwing has thinner plating than you?"

White Eyes didn't even flinch at the question, didn't stop to ponder an answer either.

"I was just created that way."

Minutely shrugging his shoulders for an effect. He quickly but carefully stood back up to his full height. Turning towards the ground bridge as he needed to go on recon. Looking over to Ratchet, he waited for him to flip the switch to activate the ground bridge and stepped through.

Making sure the bridge was closed behind him and scanning the area for witnesses he relaxed his stressed chassis. Revealing dark grey spikes that slide off of his back similar to a porcupine, relaxing his hands back to claws and retracting his face mask.

White Eyes hated his true form with a passion, but that didn't mean that it wasn't comfortable. He is surprised most mornings that he can actually recharge with being so cramped in on himself.

Mindlessly he began wandering around, scanners on high alert for any decepticons or humans that might see him. Occasionally he would stop next to a tree when he thought of something that really cought his attention. When that happened he usually ended up with a bird perching on a spike on his back or a squirrel using him to get from one tree to another. He didn't mind as long as they stayed out of the gaps on his plating, he actually enjoyed the faith these creatures held that he wouldn't hurt them, it made him feel just a little bit less like a monster.

Half of his recon was him looking for another place to feast at night, he knew that once he ran out if metal, bad things were going to happen to him and the people around him. He knew that when his primal self was mad it would kill anything that stood in its way, that means if anything happens and a human comes across him, they wouldn't live long.

Suddenly he was pulled out of his thoughts as his scanners picked up a nearby decepticon signal. Quickly retracting his spikes, and hiding everything that revealed his true identity, disturbing the nearby birds with the suddenness of his actions causing a rhythmic flutter of wings as they flew away. Squirrels chattering as they jumped to farther trees in fear.

White Eyes instantly tried to contact base through comm, but his signal was being jammed, which ment the con knew he was here, and also gave away which one of the fraggers it was. Soundwave was standing in a small clearing in the forest with lazerbeak flying overhead of him, standing there like a boss in one of the humans videogames would stand waiting for the next opponent.

Confidently stepping into the line of sight of the con's pesky bird he watched it dive from the sky towards it's master, probably comfirming his location even though it was pretty hard to miss a giant white autobot in a literal forest of green. He approached the decepticon's third in command without hesitancy staring directly into his expressionless visor.

"What do you want Soundwave"

It was more of a statement then a question, the only acknowledgment that the con even heard him was a shift of his helm, focusing on his white frame more. Slowly he heard the crackle of a radio without signal that slowly formed into recorded words making a sentence coming from the silent mech.

"I know what you are. How you killed that vehicon."

That made White Eyes twitch as his inner metalivore screamed at him to devour the metal that thought had an advantage over him. Get rid of the threat, and what better way than to make a meal out of it, hides the body better, but he didn't heed to these thoughts as he just gave Soundwave a blank stare.

"What do you want"

There was a couple seconds of tense silense as no one talked or even dared to make a move, waiting for the other to respond in some way. Then Soundwave gave his reply in broke up recordings of voices.

"I would like to make a proposition. Join the decepticon and you can show your true self, feast on our enemies, rule over the weak. You know this is where you belong."

The metalivore within him preened at the thought, to taste more and more of the desireable cybertronian alloy. But even a part of that primal instinct didn't like the thought of being under the command of Megatron and Starscream, they were just too commanding and just annoying in general.

Even though he was repulsed by this proposal, he had to think this through strategically.

"Have you revealed what I am to anyone else, or are you and Lazerbeak the only ones?"

Studying the TIC's body language and email fields, he needed to know if Soundwave would be honest with him, or just lie to get his way.

"The only other informed of your... Condition, is Megatron."

Frag, that ment that there was an open barhaining chip between Optimus and Megatron, the leader of the cons would no doubt try to use him in some way to have the upper hand. Probably just straight up tell the prime and hope that Optimus would turn on him because of his special diet. 

"And what if I say no to your offer?"

Soundwave didn't show any reaction to this as always. 

"Then that would be very unfortunate for us both."

That was when White Eyes started formulating a plan. Processor running ovedboard, he studied the mech in front of him. Once he deemed the plan plausible, he made a request of his own.

"How about you give me 24 earth hours to balance the pros and cons of your proposal. Then we will meet again, same time and place, and I will give you my answer."

They stared at each other, Soundwave contemplating his request and White Eyes allowing the decepticon TIC his time. Finally, there was a twitch of dark purple servos as he found an answer which ended up being very simple.

"24 hours."

Then he opened a ground bridge and presumably went to the Nemesis to report to Megatron about their "negotiations".

As soon as the mech was gone he felt his commlink unscramble and instantly got a ping from Ratchet.

::.Coordinates.::

White Eyes needed no explanation as he quickly pinpointed his location and sent the desired numbers to the medic. A ground bridge opened almost instantaneously to his left. Taking a step towards the blue portal he hesitated. If news somehow got to any of the bots that he was contemplating joining the decepticon, all of his work hiding his true nature would be for nothing. Hitching his events, he mentally prepared himself for the worse as he walked through the swirling mass.

It was chaos on the other side, alarms were blaring, bots were frantically moving about, and the humans looked highly unsettled. His instincts were awakened by the fear from his natural prey, but he was able to push it to the back of his processors wanting to know what was going on.

Making his way over to Ratchet he was glaf his size made the others unconsciously stay out of his path. Said medic was glued to the base's communication system, anger and frustration coming off of him. Carefully White Eyes approached him and softly set a servo on his stiff shoulder.

Ratchet jumped at the contact and his battle protocols were instantly activated until heturned around and saw who it was. Relaxing dramatically, the red/orange mech spoke.

"Thank the Allspark your here. Arcee was ambushed by a fleet of decepticon and I've lost contact with Optimus. That left me to command these overgrown sparklings, but now that your here its your problem. I wasn't formatted for commanding an army of misfits."

Ratchet mumbled the last part to himself as he turned back to the flashing screens. White Eyes was going to question why the responsibility fell upon him, then remembered how his size and personality could make even the terror twins fall into line.

Knowing that there was no way to get out of it, he sighed. Then scanned the still chaotic scene before him. Darkening his optics in a way that triggered all of the near cybertronians that happened to notice instantly become weary of the mech in front of them, and waited for the chaos to settle.

It took them a while, Ratchet was the first to notice, then as his frame tensed the others quickly followed 

With everyone attention on him, he very slowly brightened his optics as he spoke to make it less noticeable, and looked to each mech as he commeded them.

"Ratchet, check Arcee's last known location, put the coordinates into the ground bridge."

Without even double checking the medicwent to the controls and punched in the location. As Ratchet was about to activate it, White Eyes looked back to the other mechs who had relaxed ever so slightly.

"This is a rescue mission, avoid as much confrontation as possible, and get Arcee out of there."

Turnong to the balcony/human area, he addressed the humans, but mostly Miko.

"And no following us, we don't want this to take any longer than it has to be."

They all nodded in understanding ad Ratchet finally activated the bridge. Taking one last glance at all of the mechs he turned around and started towards the portal.

"Let's go"

______________________________________

They were met with Knockout, Breakdown, and Starscream. The medic and his friend/assistant were holding an unconsious Arcee in their servos.

The cons ended up demanding energon in exchange of Arcee's freedom. Wheeljack got a little trigger happy and managed to get the femme without making them lose any of their energon supply. White Eyes gave the wrecker a disappointed look for not following his commands, but didn't punish him because it worked out.

Once they got back to base Ratchet snached Arcee from Bulkhead's servos and headed towards the medbay. Bumblebee and Bulkhead went over to the humans to make sure nothing happened to their charges while they were gone. And Wheeljack decided to go out for a drive. That left White Eyes to look for Optimus.

He sighed and tried to comm Optimus to see if that would work again. Surprisingly, it did.

::.Yes White Eyes?.::

He minutely flinched at the fact he got a response.

::.Ratchet informed me you were missing.::

White Eyes could almost hear him sigh.

::.Ratchet's comm system must be down, I havent been commed since after I left to clear my processors.::

The metalivore was confused by this, wouldn't the other Autobots try to contact their leader to make sure he was fine. Something seemed off here, but he decided not to bring it up.

::.Where are you right now?.::

"I'm currently right behind you"

White Eyes almost couldn't stop himself from turning around and attacking. The only reason he didn't was because even his other side knew the voice of Optimus Prime.

Turning around he was half expecting to see plating all scratched and torn apart, but was surprised when all he saw was a little dust and mud on him. 

"Thank you for taking charge in my absence, if you hadn't there is the possibility that Arcee would no longer be with us."

"I was just doing what had to be done."

White Eyes wanted to say more, but didn't think now would be the right time. Seeing that the conversation was over and Optimus was back in command, he headed towards his quarters to get some rest. If his plan went awry, he would need as much energy as possible.


	3. Confrontation

It was 8PM when White Eyes woke up. It was a Friday so that ment the humans would be staying the night like they always did when the weekend came up. The whole aspect of staying the night at other people houses he got, but they didn't really sleep, they mostly stayed up and listened to music, talked, or played games.

Passing through the main part of the base he saw the three humans gathered around the TV watching some sort of movie while they huddled together wrapped up in blankets. He stepped off to the side into the shadows because the base lights had been dimmed, so he wouldn't be as noticable.

Silently watching the humans as they were completely focused on the screen in front of them. He sat there for a while waiting for the right moment to put his plan into action. Suddenly, he shifted his foot ever so slightly, quiet enough that it wouldn't completely take their attention off of their movie, but loud enough to make their senses open up to their surroundings a little more.

Very quietly, he started on his way towards the door, heading outside in his normal routine, but this time, he made sure that he had caught a certain human femmelings attention.

______________________________________

Miko stared at the back of the retreating cybertronian and a smile broke across her face as she ruffled through her blanket, looking for her phone. Her movement caught the attention of Jack and Raf, the movie was starting to become dull and Miko practically ripped the shared blanket off the two.

"What's up Miko?"

Raf asked as she finally found her phone and instantly texted Bulkhead, occasionally glancing at the door which White Eyes had just left through.

"We're gonna follow White Eyes, he has to be keeping some sort of secret, that's the only reason he's gone constantly."

An obviously tired and slightly annoyed Bulkhead walked into the room. Glancing over to the now paused TV and the three wide awake teens, he got a feeling there was trouble in the near future.

"Miko, shouldn't you be recharging."

The female laughed at how he slipped up when he was tired.

"It's sleeping, not recharge, and I can't sleep with the thought of a possible mission within my grasp!"

He sighed in exhaustion, last couple solar cycles he didn't get any recharge because he had been helping Jackie with the rules of being on earth and showing him around base and the organic planet.

Bulkhead was about to suggest she think about it some other time, when Wheeljack walked up behind him, probably roused out if his recharge when Bulkhead groaned because of the text message.

"What's going on here, we going on a secret mission?"

The ex-wrecker grinned at the thought of going on a rouge mission. Its been a while since he has been on one of those. Bulkhead was about to correct him, say that there was no mission, but he was interrupted by Miko.

"Yeah! You know White Eyes, the huge secretive white and silver bot? We're going to follow him, finally figure out his secret!"

Bulkhead sighed, shaking his helm slightly.

"You guys can do that, I'm going to stay here and get some recharge. I don't understand what you have against White Eyes and I don't want to be a part of it, sorry."

With that said, he turned around and gave a tired wave as he walked back to his berthroom for some much needed recharge.

Miko's expression sobered at her guardians actions, sad that Bulkhead didn't want to come and concerned over the ex-wreckers mental health. Wheeljack saw this and gave her a reassuring smile.

"Bulk's just tired, when he wakes up he'll want to hear all about what we found. Now lets go before we loose him!"

The teen smiled at that and stood up in excitement, quickly ran down the stairs, turned towards the base exit and started sprinting with Jack and Raf following her. Wheeljack excitedly transformed and drove into the humans path, throwing open his doors he waited for them to climb in, and spun his tires as he left the base.

______________________________________

White Eyes was disappointed that it was taking the female this long to follow him. He was purposely going at a painfully slow pace to make sure they would be able to follow him, but it was kind of hard to do that while also not seeming suspicious.

Passing through his normal route he was extremely releaved to find that tonight was a surprisingly quiet Friday night. He didn't see any of his regulars, just a few drunks who stumbled alongside a semi-sober friend or two.

The sound of an approaching engine shouldn't have seemed out of the ordinary, or even surprise him for that matter. But when he focused his sensors on the familiar sounding rumble, we was met with the sight of Wheeljack rather than the green mech he was expecting.

This would really put a damper on his plans. Bulkhead and Wheeljack had two completely different personalities, and the one currently following him was almost as triggerhappy as an old weapons specialist he used to know.

Mentally trying to shift his plan to accommodate the change, he suddenly took a turn towards a backroad and sped up slightly. With the mech following him with determination he realised this was going to he harder than he first expected. Either Wheeljack was distracted, or he was a horrible spy because he was way too obvious, and it didn't help that they knew each other. White Eyes was actually a little disappointed.

Suddenly, Wheeljack turned down a different road, and the metalivore slowed in confusion. It was only when his advanced audio receptors caught the sound of his engine running parallel to him behind the landscape that he realised what the wrecker was doing. A small spike of anger flared through him, this definitely wasn't a part of the plan. Wheeljack was planning on confronting him, and he didn't want that.

Speeding up as fast as he could he headed straight for his feeding area. Making sure he lost the mech well before he got there, he prepared himself for what he was about to do. Transforming back into bipedal mode he tried not to override the commands to free his normal servos and backstruts. He felt so bare and exposed like this, knowing that he was about to be witnessed in his true form. The facemask stayed on as he was already uncertain about the situation, and the unfiltered scent of cybertronian alloy on top of that could be bad.

Practically shaking in anticipation, he stood there facing the road in his true form silently praying to a dormant Primus that everything would turn out fine. It was when he saw the headlights shine on him that he instinctually jumped out of the way. An instant reaction from trying to keep himself secret all of these vorns.

He heard Wheeljack stop and hesitantly open his doors to let his passengers out. The tense silence was ever so slightly broken by the words he spoke to the human younglings.

"Stay here, this thing could be hiding anywhere."

The mech transformed and quickly scanned the junkyard, using his headlights that were now located on his chest.

White Eyes accidentally pushed over an aluminum barrel, making a loud clanking sound and he cringed as his optics were suddenly met with the light. He heard a blaster charging and his instincts took over.

______________________________________

Wheeljack was surprised when the cybertronian in front of him offlined. Just like that, he pointed his blaster at it and poof, it's optics went black. Drooping his weapon in confusion and slight amusement, he was about to inspect the mech before him when he heard the telltale click of a battle mask retracting ...that was weird.

Before he knew what was happening it practically teleported onto its pedds in front of him and made the most predatory cybertronian grind he has ever heard. The disturbing sound rang out the abandoned land as everyone that heard it stilled in shock and fear. Wheeljack unconsciously took a step back and noticed a strong and insistent ping coming deep within his processors.

Quickly focusing on the unknown mech before him, it looked like it was having some sort of internal conflict as it was slightly wavering in it's stance, optics flickering a faint white. The ping became more apparent and he hesitantly opened it. It seemed to become more than a normal ping as old information and memories when he was a sparkling raced through the forefront of his processors.

As he was struck with realization he stared at the being in front of him with fear, shock, and hopelessness. Standing before him was a being long thought to be extinct, one that in the golden age would be told as sparkling stories. Wheeljack was standing before the last Metalivore.

______________________________________

Miko, Jack, and Rad all felt their hearts drop and adrenaline burst through their veins as they watched the wrecker drop to his knees in a way that could only mean helplessness and defeat.

"No"

The words came out of her mouth before the mech even settled on his knees.

"No"

The second time was more desperate as she saw the monster focus on the defeated mech before him.

"NO!"

The third time was in pure desperation as she got up from their hiding space behind a half destroyed Chevy. Sprinting towards Wheeljack and the figure towering over him. Jack reached towards the girl, not wanting her to fall victim as well, but she slipped out of his grasp.

"Wheeljack!"

Jack and Raf watched as the giant mech quickly turned it's attention to Miko who didn't seem to notice in her mad dash to the wrecker. But the monster didn't attack as she approached his prey. It actually seemed to calm down as it watched her grow near. It's head tilting in a way that was similar to a curious puppy.

As Miko got to Wheeljack the mech towering over them continued to stare at her as it's optics slowly brightened and it's stance shifted. Suddenly Jack saw movement out of the corner of his eye, turning his head he saw Raf hesitantly stand. Jack was about to mouth for him to get down and hide. The tween turned to him with a confused and reluctant expression.

"It won't hurt us Jack."

Jack almost started flailing his arms in frustration, and started whisper yelling at him.

"What do you mean it wont hurt us!? Did you see the way Wheeljack reacted to that thing?"

Raf looked back to the behemoth and watched it's optics become completely white. It seemed slightly disoriented as it took a couple steps back, looking at the sight before him in what could only be sadness. The tween took a couple steps forewards, wanting to get a better look.

"No, you aren't going over there too!"

Raf quickly dodged Jack as he tried to grab him, but didn't go any further as he studied the anomaly. Something about it seemed strikingly familiar, but he didn't know what. Then he watched as it activated it's face mask, and that's when he understood.

"White Eyes"

Jack just barely heard him before the kid started running.

______________________________________

White Eyes was finally able to gain control again amd he was met with the sight of the human female Miko trying to get some sort of reaction from the unresponsive but awake Wheeljack who was staring at the Metalivore's pedds.

Frag, this wasn't how it was supposed to go, he was supposed to be angry, maybe yell or even attack him, but that wasn't ths case. He had reduced Wheeljack to this shell of a mech. Unconsciously he took a step backwards and activated his face mask, not liking his expressions so exposed. How is this even possible, Wheeljack was tougher than this.

"White Eyes"

If the night wasn't so quiet he wouldn't have heard it, and by Wheeljack's reaction, he heard it too. The wrecker's helm whipped up to face the mech before him, confusion seeping over his broken expression. The only sound was Raf's footsteps as he ran towards the Metalivore. Wheeljack must've made the connection, slowly his faceplates morphed into disgust as he stood up, carefully shifting to block Raf's path towards White Eyes. 

"You pitspawned slagger"

Yes, yes this was good, If he was exiled or killed they didn't need a broken wrecker on top of losing one of their best warriors. Raf looked shocked by Wheeljack's actions, occasionally glancing at White Eyes with a confused sadness, then looking to the wrecker with confusion.

"Wheeljack, wh-what's going on?"

Said mech shifted to let the kid know he heard him but didn't want to take his focus from the being in front of him.

"Raf, get Miko and Jack out of here. Optimus should be on his way, go back through the bridge."

Said tween was about to reply when he was cut off by a voice to his left.

"I'm not going anywhere until you explain what's going on. Why does White Eyes look so different, and what was that sound?"

The female seemed to be addressing both mech as she asked her questions. Jack reluctantly approached once he saw that Raf's assumption was correct. He stood there along with the other humans staring at the two giants in front of them expecting some sort of answer.

"I'm not going to fight with you Miko, leave or so Primus help me, you may die, and that's not a threat."

He still didn't turn, but they could all tell the mech was on edge and frustrated. Before anyone could react, a ground bridge opened up to the right of the whole interaction. Optimus walked through with blaster ready, Ratchet reluctantly followed, but still on edge.

White Eyes immediately stiffened, expecting them to start shooting as soon as they saw his spikes and claws, but they just came up to a safe distance and took a defensive stance. The Metalivore couldn't help but notice the disappointed and sad look on Ratchet's faceplates. It was obvious that the medic was trying to hide it, but White Eyes knew him too well. Optimus was disappointed as well, but he didn't try to hide it as hard as Ratchet.

"Jack, Miko, Raf, go back to base."

They all complied hesitantly, Miko grumbling as they did so and Raf looked to White Eyes with sadness. Once they left it seemed a tension left the air, the only one still holding it was Wheeljack. Optimus and Ratchet carefully examined the scene before them. White Eyes stood there with mournful optics, almost as if he knew he was about to be killed and he wasn't going to put up a fight. With Wheeljack staring at the mentally defeated metalivore with hatred and disgust.

Optimus didn't quite know what to do with the metalivore, but he knew what was morally right in this current situation.

"Wheeljack, stand down, let the mech explain himself."

Releaf passed through both White Eyes and Ratchet's expressions, but they quickly sombered by how quickly the wrecker became infuriated.

"Optimus, do you not understand what this- this Thing is standing before me? It has probably killed thousands of mech and cannibalised them just for his own gain, and you want me to stand down!? No thanks, I don't want to be eated today."

White Eyes watched the interaction, nodding his head silently by the reason Wheeljack gave. Looking to Optimus as he waited for his reaction, which ended up being a little bit different than what he was expecting.

"Yes"

Wheeljack practically whipped his helm to face the Prime, an obvious expression of "your glitched" flashing across his face. He was about to turn back to the threat and give a verbal reply when a thought flashed through his helm. Optics brightening in false realization and fear, he quickly powered up his other blaster and almost hesitantly pointed it to the red and blue mech. His vocal processor malfunctioning as he gave his answer to the now confused and surprised Prime.

"Y-you're one of them, aren't you. You're a Metalivore, you've been in disguise this whole time waiting to build an army, just so you can kill them, but you realised the fault in your plan and let Megatron do the dirty work and you just took the lifeless chassis. Didn't you!?"

Wheeljack madly shook the blaster at Optimus with the exclamation. Ratchet's processor almost started to fritz at how the wrecker got that idea from what was happening around him. Making sure the frazzled and confused Prime didn't have time to reply and possibly make this worse, Ratchet replied for him.

"No, you processor glitched wrecker, your starting to sound like Red Alert with all of these conspiracies. Optimus was telling you to put your blaster down because White Eyes obviously doesn't want to be a threat and probably won't put up a fight. Now get your processor out of it's fritz and think clearly."

Wheeljack glanced at the medic as his erratic venting started to slow, his processors quickly correcting themselves. Carefully he turned his attention back to the true Metalivore as he slowly dropped the blaster that was pointed at his prime. There's no way the matrix of leadership would've chosen someone currupted enough to sacrifice their own army. Carefully, Wheeljack studied White Eyes, taking in the defeated expressions, if he focused hard enough, he could even see self hatred floating around in those white optics.

That was the only convincing he needed, he didn't like it, but he believed that the monster before him wasn't going to be a threat. Jerking his blaster down with a sneer he looked back to Optimus.

"Fine, but I'll be watching him."

The other three mechs relaxed at that, Optimus nodded in thanks and turned towards the suddenly small feeling Metalivore, he didn't like this unwanted attention, but he understood it was necessary. 

Suddenly they all got a frantic comm from Bulkhead and Bumblebee, something about Raf and a scraplet. 

This was definitely a part of the plan, this was the part where it could one of two ways, but fate seemed to suggest a third alternative, he just hoped this one didn't result in casualties. Optimus quickly pulled his servo up to his audio receptor, White Eyes could hear the Prime's assurance of backup through the open Autobot link. He was about to address the large mech, when he was interrupted by the mech in question.

"Let me at them."

Wheeljack seemed to ball at this, about to go on a rant about how that was a bad idea. Optimus seemed uncertain of what his response should be in this situation, and Ratchet seemed to have an epiphany.

"Ah, That's right, Metalivores adapted to the large amounts of scraplets in Kaon before it was largely populated. Your species's thick metal was made to be immune to scraplets, their perfect predator while also using the pests to keep your metal thick."

White Eyes nodded, pride and happiness flashing through his optics at Ratchet's knowledge. But quickly frowned as he made the connection for those who weren't as well knowledge on the subject.

"Yes, but once scraplets became almost nonexistent we began starving, and some of us resorted to feasting upon the creatures made up of the same Alloy. The ones that didn't, died off and soon there were scattered colonies of the cannibals more commonly known today."

White Eyes left out the part about their species adapted to the bipedal cybertronians becoming their new prey, but Ratchet gave him an understanding look. Optimus seemed to understand as he nodded and requested a ground bridge. Wheeljack stared at the Metalivore in a confused shock, obviously still not completely trusting him, but understanding where he came from. He still feared that one night he would wake from recharge to the sounds of horror filled screams as the mech in front of him devoured his victim. 

Ratchet seemed happy that the whole misunderstanding was out of the way, and quickly fell into medic mode as he worried for the cybertronians on the other side of the newly formed ground bridge. Without another word all four of them ran through the bridge to be greeted with the sound of whirring, clicking, and different thicknesses of metal clanging against eachother all around. 

Suddenly everything stopped as everyone there looked at the newly approached mechs, soon all of the scraplets caught sight of the Metalivore and they filled with a primal fear as they quickly scattered, leaving the scratched and battered mech and femmes they were previously feasting on to sit there in confusion.

White Eyes felt a primal urge stronger than he has ever felt before as he watched the small pests run from him, the air thick with their unfiltered fear. Before he knew what was happening he retracted his battle mask and his optics dimmed to black once again. He ground his pointed dents together and very quietly he started to grind, it grew in volume as he quickly let go of all restraint and let loose. The sound bounced across the base and some of the autobots could even hear fear filled squeakes from some of the hiding scraplets.

The metalivore took off to find the creatures as he left behind multiple shocked humans and cybertronians. The only one who wasn't shocked was Ratchet as he quickly went to work on Arcee who seemed to have the worse injuries. Only the femme was able to witness the small smile on his faceplates as he minutely shook his helm at the oddly useful metalivore.


	4. Acceptance?

As White Eyes chased the pests through base, he pondered the next step of his plan. So far it had gone better than he had presumed, but he needed to remember to take into consideration all variables. A loud crunch momentarily brought his attention back to the present. He was practically covered in the offensive scraplets, but they were barely making a dent in his armor.

Quickly recognising what had caught his attention, he continued chewing the thicker than usual scraplet, eyeing the handful of deceased cybertronians in his right servo. White Eyes hesitated as thoughts of what his comrades obvious reactions of disgust and fear of what he was currently doing coursed through his processors. But he knew that they were currently stationed in the main area of the base, away from the morbid sight of his feast. Sighing, he continued, thankful that the alloy before him wasn't made of sentient beings.

Before long he felt his hunger dwindle which cleared his processors of the primal instincts. Which was a strange situation for the mech. White Eyes had never actually been completely satisfied, never had a full tank. It had never actually gone past 63% capacity since he was a sparkling. It was a strange feeling indeed as for the last 1,200 vorns he had only felt starvation.

His attention was pulled back as a quiet but frantic scraping came from at his peds. As his optics were directed to the source of the sound, he nearly flinched as he witnessed a half consumed scraplet trying to escape him. As self disgust washed over his frame, he quickly snapped his face mask into place as he stepped on the traumatised creature, ending it's surprisingly long existence.

Not lifting his pedd from the now dead scraplet, he examined the surroundings. A few portions of the metal walls had been chewed through, not by him thankfully, as could be told by the smaller denta marks. Sighing, White Eyes took a couple hesitant steps towards the similar scent of the autobots. He knew he had to face them and face the repercussions, but that didn't mean he would like it. He thought as he walked towards the autobots awaiting him.

The closer he got the more tension he felt forming in the cybertronians. when he finally made it to the entrance of the main room he was met with six pairs of optics watching his every move, and three pairs of eyes looking at him, but they all held different emotions. Deciding that delaying the inevitable was counter productive, he looked to the prime as he addressed the cybertronians.

"The scraplet situation has been taken care of."

It was only as he noticed Miko paying him special attention that he remembered that he still hasn't retracted his back spikes or any of his metalivore kibble. With an almost unnoticeable grimace he decided it was too late for that now.

Optimus seemed to be the least effected from the whole situation as he stepped forward and nodded his helm in acknowledgement. He turned his frame so he was able to speak to the other autobots and also keep the metalivore in his peripheral, glancing between the two masses as he spoke.

"I'm glad to hear, from your continued loyalty I presume the only thing that should change, is how we see you physically."

Releaf settled through White Eyes chassis as his whole frame relaxed, carefully retracting his faceplate to reveal to the prime his visual appreciation. But to Optimus's other side he was met with complaints and frantic contradictions to his statement.

"Do you have a screw loose!? Can't you see the monster standing before you!?"

"I'm sorry Optimus, but are you sure that is a good idea, metalivores are feared for a reason."

"We can't accept a monster into our ranks, that would be ludicrous, what if one of us is eaten while we're in recharge?"

Optimus seemed disappointed by the actions of his soldiers and friends. This time, turning his back completely to White Eyes to address the complaining cybertronians, many of which complained more from that action. But quickly stopped as he tightened his posture, silently requesting them to listen to reason.

"I can understand your concern, but it is unnecessary, White Eyes has been within our ranks for many vorns, and not once has he let his unfortunate nature harm an autobot. He has kept this from us to save himself from us, not because he was going to turn on the autobots or our cause. If that was his origional motive, he wouldn't have stayed with us as long as he has"

As he finished he once again turned his attention towards said mech, but was almost surprised to see him distracted by a very enthusiastic Miko.

"Yo, so are you like a wendigo? Can you run so fast that it seems like you can teleport? Oh, what are the spikes on your back for? Can they shoot off like a porcupine? Or maybe they shoot lasers? Are you a giant metal hedgehog!?"

White Eyes seemed so lost and confused. Miko had somehow ended up at his peds occasionally trying to climb up his leg struts, but he was able to very delicately pick her up and place her on the floor as she kept spitting rapid fire questions. He tried his best to answer her questions with a nod or shake of his helm, but it was becoming difficult as she started refrencing things he didn't quite understand. Jack and Raf were standing behind her at a distance, but were paying more attention to their guardians than Miko and the mech she was pestering. 

The boys watched as Optimus smiled at the interaction, which was providing proof for his statement. Bumblebee seemed to accept White Eyes and his nature pretty quick, smiling ever so slightly at the human, but he was still a little on edge. Ratchet looked relieved that someone he saw as practically a brother hadn't turned on him, but there was something that seemed to be concerning him. Bulkhead looked like he didn't really know what to think, as he tried to take it all in with his taxed processors. Arcee and Wheeljack were the ones still on edge and skeptical, it was obvious that they would be keeping an optic on the metalivore.

Jack, deciding to give the probably stressed mech the benefit of the doubt, decided to give him a hand. Turning in the direction of Miko and her victim he sighed.

"Miko, why don't you give him a break, maybe ask him these questions tomorrow or at least give him enough time to answer."

Miko looked back at him and processed what he said, then sheepishly turned back to White Eyes.

"Sorry, I should probably let you speak with the autobots huh?"

The metalivore looked down at the female with a surprised and thankful expression. Giving her a small smile he made sure she was at a safe distance then stood back up and lightly shifted. Expression dropping off of his faceplates he looked back at Optimus, expecting some sort of command from him.

White Eyes knew that Optimus and Ratchet relatively understood and excepted him, but the other autobots were definitely going to be a different story. There was no doubt in his processors that there were going to be bumps along the road.

As it seemed everything was starting to settle, he felt a gaze suddenly sharpen on him and before he knew what was happening his arm was being yanked towards the medbay. His battle mask instantly snapping into place to cover the scent of the mech dragging him. Ratchet grumbled something about how the metalivore wasn't escaping the medbay this time.

______________________________________

As the door closed and locked behind White Eyes, Ratchet turned to the mech and looked at him expectantly. Shifting ever so slightly under the medic's gaze, he didn't speak feeling that Ratchet needed to get something off his processors first. His assumption was proven correct as something shifted within the mech and he started speaking.

"You could have told me. It's not like I would've exposed you or had you killed. There is a such thing as doctor/patient confidentiality."

Ratchet paused as he silently directed the metalivore to a large medical berth, then he continued as he started his examination.

"You could've killed yourself by not refueling properly.

He exvented.

"I've known you for so long and you wouldn't trust me with something like this, I'm almost offended."

The medic stopped and stared at one of White Eyes systems, but he could tell Ratchet was thinking deeply about something. Suddenly his optics flickered and he closed the plating with a sigh.

"I'm more disappointed, in myself for not noticing something was off, and you for forcing yourself to go through this alone."

Turning his optics up to look at the metalivore he sent him a half heated glare.

"I would throw a wrench at you, but your helm is so thick it wouldn't leave a dent."

Sighing again he dropped his glare and went back to work on a different part of his chassis, whispering under his exvent.

"How unsatisfying."

______________________________________

Stepping out of the medbay felt like the easiest motion White Eyes had ever done his whole lifecycle. His joints were loose, systems unclogged, and plating welded back together. There were next to no hitches in his movements and if he wasn't so researved (and frankly mature) he would have jumped for joy.

So many emotions were swirling through his emotion cortex and almost all of them were positive. He wasn't immediately kicked out of the autobots, or killed for that matter, but he was relatively accepted. There would of course be some initial distrust, but with how well things were going he believed that wouldn't stay for too long. Optimus was apparently going to allow him to get some recharge at this late time, seeing how he hadn't been commed by the Prime yet. So White Eyes headed back to his berth room with an ever so slight bounce in his step. Although he made sure he didn't shake the ground too much as he passed the children, who were all fast asleep in the main center.

There was one thought that was nagging him at the back of his processors still. And it was the fact that this wasn't over yet, there was still a part of his plan left. It wasn't a small part either, no, it involved the decepticons. There was still the matter of his meeting with Soundwave tomorrow, and his logical processors were telling him it wasn't going to go down smoothly.

With a very minute sneer White Eyes sent a ping to his door, commanding it to open. He had a relative idea of what was going to happen, and he was not happy about it. At least he actually had a full tank, he just wanted to get a good amount of recharge to see what it was like when he was at his full potential. Which will be especially useful if tomorrow goes how he speculates it will.

______________________________________

His systems booted up smoothly, which was a good sign that there wasn't a panic throughout the base. Quickly checking his chronometer he relaxed as it was 9 o'clock. That gave him a good amount of time to prepare for what's to come. 

As he walked towards the command center, he started to feel self conscious. Should he keep his metalivore kibble out or retract it for the others to feel more comfortable. There could be repercussions for both, but he soon realised that it would be best if he didn't try to hide it from them anymore, if they become accustomed to seeing him like this, there is a better chance of them accepting him for what he is.

When he finally arrived, a tension formed and internally he sighed as Arcee and Wheeljack gave him distrustful looks and watched him. Ratchet and Optimus just acknowledged his presence and went back to work. Bumblebee and Bulkhead seemed slightly on edge but not quite distrustful. But all of those observations went out the window as his attention was quickly brought to Raf, who was walking up to him on the floor. White Eyes very carefully crouched down and gave him a nod in greeting and smiled behind his battle mask. It seemed that the humans didn't treat him much differently, if anything they seemed to like him more.

The smell of fear is very different between species, especially if they're made up of different chemical compounds and have different souls. But at the same time, as soon as a predator smalls the scent of fear, they know instantly what it is. And right now White Eyes could smell a very faint scent of fear coming off of the small human. His smile suddenly dropping into a frown in concern, he started to notice that the tween was shaking ever so slightly and his pupils were dialated as well. If he was so scared of him, than why was he approaching the metalivore?

White Eyes felt sadness almost overwhelm him, Raf was such an innocent creature, of course he would be afraid of a giant metal monster. Unknown to the metalivore, he actually keened in sadness and remorse. When he felt as exposed as he did with his kibble activated there were gaps in his mental walls, making his emotional cues harder to block.

Raf was instantly able to understand what the keen ment, he had heard it from Bumblebee multiple times. Immediately feeling bad for making White Eyes sad, Raf disregarded his fear and ran up to the mech and touched his shin, waiting for the Metalivore to look at him. When he did, Raf looked into the white optics dimmed in sadness, and gave him a reassuring smile, rubbing his shin in a motion that was ment to be soothing. Raf quickly noticed they had an audience but tried to ignore it in favor of comforting the mech had done nothing wrong. Said mech's expression slowly turned into a sad confusion.

"Why do you feel the need to comfort me?"

Raf shifted a little bit as the gazes of everyone watching turned their attention to him. He started to sweat a little bit in nervousness, but tried to push through it, making sure not to actually looking at the ones watching him.

"Because my fear is irrational, and you don't deserve to feel bad for someone that fears you without reason."

White Eyes optic ridges scruntched a little in confusion. The human, seeing this decided to clarify.

"You haven't done anything to truly gain my fear, and learning what you are shouldn't change that either. Even if you did something bad in your past, people change and if they decided to truly change on their own, then it's good to give them the benefit of the doubt."

The metalivore went through a series of emotions, before stopping on thankfulness. Very carefully, he brought his servo down next to the child, waiting for him to either climb on, or regect his offer. After Raf climbed onto the servo and held onto one of the digits, he looking up to the mech expectantly. Slowly White Eyes brought him up to his chest, and signaled for the child to lean on the plating. When he did, the metalivore sent out a strong emp pulse of thankfulness, that also heated up the plating on his chest. Bending down at the same time and whispered to Raf.

"Thank you"


	5. The Aftermath

After interacting with the humans a little bit more, and having a relatively normal conversation with Optimus, it was finally 12 o'clock. The time he had a meeting with a certain communications officer. White Eyes was able to make it to the field right as the clock hit 12. He didn't see the purple mech anywhere and started to think that he was stood up, until he saw a certain bird-like cybertronian land on a nearby tree.

As soon as he noticed Laserbeak, a groundbridge opened in front of White Eyes and Soundwave appeared from it. The TIC didn't move as the swirling mass dissapeared behind him. The cybertronian bird flew to his host at a silent signal, that left Soundwave and White Eyes in a tense silence, waiting for the other to speak. It ended up being broken by the voices of a couple of unwelcome guests.

"Miko, I told you to stop running through the ground bridge when someone is on recon, you never know where it could lead."

"Yeah, but I wanted to hang out with White Eyes, get to learn more about him after we figured out he is the bot equivalent of a rockin' cannibal."

White Eyes tensed at the voices, knowing that Soundwave must've heard as well. He felt the decepticon's gaze sharpen on him, as some brush off to his right rustled in the humans approach. It seemed the TIC waited until the humans were within close enough distance for them to hear before he spoke in his clips of broke up voices.

"Traitor! You have chosen - pesky autobots. Then - join them in extinction!"

Soundwave's visor turned virtually black as he summoned multiple ground bridges that allowed troops of vehicons and other decepticons to come through from practically every direction. The human children suddenly stopped and there was a small gasp from Miko. There was more rustling as I spotted Jack push the female into the center of a bush and jump in after her. Once I felt certain the humans were safe, I relaxed my cover plating as I turned to face the groundbridge my instincts told me would be of interest. As I allowed my spikes and claws to be revealed, the liquid wall was broke by a dark silver form, first the pedd, then his servo, and finally he emerged. 

Megatron stood there, studying my now revealed form, Starscream came flying out in his alt mode and did a high barrel roll  before landing next to his leader in his base mode. I knew that Soundwave had more than likely blocked my ability to comm others, but I tried anyways. At the same moment I stood there, watching every movement made by the decepticons that were now surrounding me. As my speculation over comms was proven, Megatron suddenly took a few small strides towards me, his troops all shifted in anticipation.

"This is your last chance Metalivore, join us now, or perish."

It infuriated me that Megatron believed that I would defect over the fate of my own spark. Even though I was created a monster doesn't mean I have to be shackled by my fate, I can make my own path. I will form my own fate whether it offlines me or not. 

As my optics faded to black, the spikes upon my back bristled, and I charged into the now approaching mob of cybertronians yelling their war cries. My basic programming took over as the inevitable massacre began at my servos. I took down vehicon after vehicon, decapitating some with my incredibly sharp claws, others attempted to harm me by cutting through my back spikes, only to get pierced by the tips. When I got slightly carried away I suddenly let out a spark shattering grind, it was so loud that I could feel the other cybertronian's plating rattle. I got lost in the rage, I was starting to feel the warm energon coating my monstrous chassis, and I felt an instinctual bliss from it. I couldn't truly see, hear, or smell while my chassis was hijacked by my base programming. I was practically dormant within my frame, my consciousness slowly fading, giving place to my innermost instincts. Suddenly, I heard a very quiet sound of frightened whimpers, by the tone of it, the sound was coming from a human female.

Why would there be a human on cybertron? Organics can't survive on a non-organic planet, the atmosphere isn't able to sustain any organic life. I felt like I was being pulled in and out of consciousness as programming and curiosity started to battle for dominance. As my curiosity and scientific nature started to take over, I was finally able to hear the previously incomprehensible words that I hadn't noticed in my haze.

"-do something, White Eyes is completely outnumbered, I don't care if he is the equivalent of a mythical thing from cybertron, there is no way he can take out the whole decepticon army by himself. Jack! are you even listening to me!?" 

I had to quickly pull my attention from the humans as I suddenly heard an alarming swish of air past my helm. It took not even a klick for Lazerbeak to be able to draw energon from my thick plating, it seemed that Soundwave has been modifying his symbiote for the sole purpose of slashing through my thick metalivore plating. My darkened optics allow me to seemingly disappear in a pitch black room or area, they don't give off light like your usual cybertronian. 

Once my programming noticed there was something/someone that could even be considered a threat, it activated prey mode. I instantly went from "attack everything in sight" to "hide from danger".  Doing this wasn't a challenging task considering the fact that a large amount of my enemies had joined the well. All I had to do, was escape their view and make it so there was no way to be tracked or located. 

As soon as I saw an opening, I acted. Quickly, I took one large swipe with my right clawed servo, causing a few vehicons to either jump back or be hit and knocked out of the way. For that split second where there was a part in the mob, I took the opportunity and sprinted through, carefully weaving through the other more spread out cybertronians. I managed to frantically dive away and hide in the brush along the treeline of the opening, Once I knew I was in a decent spot, I stopped any and all movement to reduce sound. Every cybertronian was frantically looking for any sign of me, I had effectively escaped danger for a limited amount of time. 

A sudden sound almost right beneath my crouched form caught my attention.

"Primus, Please tell me White Eyes isn't going to kill us."

There was a sudden hushed silence that broke through the frantic search as the decepticons tried to locate the source of the sound. I had to restrain myself from comforting the children, as it would only cause us all harm in the end. Once the decepticon wide search became a hushed mass of conversation and statements, I took my first chance at movement, hoping they wouldn't hear me over their own noise. 

The first thing I did, was very slowly and carefully faced the children, I was met with the spark dimming sight of both Jack and Miko staring at me with a combined emotion of fear and helplessness. That was when I quickly noticed Jack had his phone in hand, and it was on a screen that gave off the impression that he was in a phone call with someone. There was a timer counting, telling me that he was in the conversation for 1 minute and 37 seconds. Suddenly there was a very quiet and almost hushed voice on the other line asking what was wrong, I couldn't tell who it was over the phone, but I had a feeling that it was Arcee. An idea hit me like a brick as I saw the seconds counting, Soundwave wasn't expecting humans to be here when we met, so he only prepared a comm jammer, there can sill be communication through phones.

I met Jack's terrified eyes, and very carefully nodded, hoping he would understand what I was asking him to do. It seemed that he did as he slowly brought his shaking hand holding the phone to his head. His eyes were searching my optics for something as he spoke to his femme guardian, it seemed he found what he was looking for as he brought his gaze away from mine to focus on  quietly speaking to Arcee.

"Arcee, can you get Ratchet the coordinates to my location, we need as much help here as possible."

There was a bit of harsh shouting coming from the other side of the line until it fell into an expectant silent.

"...Miko ran through the bridge after White Eyes and I needed to follow her to make sure she was going to be safe."

I could hear Arcee sigh and say something in an exasperated tone until there was more silence, suddenly she said they were on their way. Before any of us could revel in the fact that we were getting help, I felt a searing pain on the right side plating of my helm, the decepticons had found my hiding spot. 

There was shouting and more blaster fire, my first thought was to help the children, I need to keep them safe. So I quickly picked them up, trying to do so in a manner that wasn't harmful. I had a surreal moment when I saw how small and fragile they truly were in my giant servo. Their lives could be ended so easily, just with the twitch of a digit. I focused solely on them, I didn't care that I was being pelted by searing energon, or that lazerbeak was occasionally swooping down from the sky to pierce through my plating. My main objective was to get the humans to safety.

They were extremely frightened, I could smell the fear in their hormones it was an overwhelming smell that I feared would trigger my predator coding. Thankfully I quickly noticed that it was triggering my protective coding, even my sire programming started to respond. 

I gently curled my digits in towards the children, in a protective shell of some sorts, then without any regard for my own well being, I barreled through the crowd, curled into myself a I ran. I had somehow forgotten about the still exposed spikes on my back, as I ran I felt vehicons being pierced by the spikes and even struggling as they were stuck upon my back, writhing in the pain that came with being suspended by a puncture. 

I heard when Miko began crying, I had never heard a sound similar to it. Her cries sounded like pure fear and despair. The amount of stress coming off Jack rose once she began, It was when I heard him trying to comfort her, that I knew what I had to do to protect them. I knew that if I had to choose between my life and the humans, I would have to chose the humans. They are a species that is growing and deserve to discover the things that we already know, but seem like impossible discoveries to them. These ones specifically, haven't truly gotten a taste of what the universe has to offer, and it would be shameful if they were to die before their vorn is up. I can only hope they can live longer than the vorn that is their estimated life span. 

As I made sure my chest wasn't visible or open for attack I carefully brought the children up to the thick plating. I looked down at the disturbed humans and whispered to them.

"Close your eyes and don't touch the source of the warmth."

The paneling on my chest cracked open, allowing a brilliant light to shine through. Carefully, I brought them closer to the opening, trying to coax them to enter my spark chamber. Jack was the first one to take the "risk", I felt an unpleasant ping ring through my systems as he made contact with the inner chamber. It was torture trying to endure the almost painful tickling feeling, but I tried my hardest to ignore it for the sake of the humans. As Miko got the idea and started to enter I had to stop myself from shivering as it would cause them to move around more to stabilize themselves. She was more willing to enter knowing that it was safe, and she jumped from my servo into he chamber. Once she landed on the lining, my systems immediately informed me that I had some sort of parasite in my spark chamber, and that it should me removed as soon as possible. 

I quickly overrode the warnings as I closed my chest plates, it was practically impossible not to think about the parasitic feeling especially when it was in the same chamber that housed my spark. Trying my hardest not to show that something was different, I carefully turned around and faced the decepticons. 

Instead of seeing a swarm of vehicons and a few fliers coming after me, I was met with the sight of Optimus Prime, Arcee, Wheeljack, Bumblebee, and Bulkhead fighting with determination against the decepticon army. A small smile broke across my face plates as I carefully charged into the field to help my team mates, making sure not to shake my chassis too much. Only 1/3 of the army was left at this point, Starscream was nowhere to be found, Breakdown was in bad condition with energon dripping from many places as he tried his best against the almost polished Bulkhead. Dreadwing had multiple claw marks across his chassis, which were more than likely from me, and they were dripping a small amount of energon as Arcee and Bumblebee were attempting to take him on. Wheeljack seemed to be having fun as he was taking advantage of the mob of weakened vehicons, practically mowing the decepticons down, and of course, Optimus was facing against his longtime rival, both of them were relatively unharmed at the moment.

My spark pulsed slightly at the sight, they may have come at the request of the children, but they had also come to assist me in a problem that should only be mine in the first place. I quickly joined Arcee and Bumblebee, as soon as I showed up, Dreadwing turned his whole attention towards his biggest threat, me. Once he had done so, he was a gonner as both of the other autobots took the advantage and aimed their attacks at his vulnerable back plating, effectively taking him down for good. As soon as both Bumblebee and Arcee had given me the signal that they were okay, I turned to look for the next person to assist.

Bulkhead had just finished his unfair battle with Breakdown, and was heading towards Wheeljack to help him with a slight amount of excitement radiating in his field. I didn't feel Optimus would appreciate me trying to help him, and every other opponent had next to no chance of winning. 

Suddenly I saw a figure circling in the sky, that was when I remembered Soundwave. How could I forget the whole reason I was in this mess in the first place? It seemed that the communication officer knew I had noticed him as a smaller form detached from him and headed straight towards me. That was when I realized that Lazerbeak could be a real threat to the children taking refuge in my spark chamber. A strange feeling of hatred and protectiveness came over as my optics blacked over, and my subconscious blacked out, the last thing I remember truly thinking was of the well being of Miko and Jack.

________________________________________

The first thing I focused on when I onlined, was my spark chamber, and when I felt the parasitic movements within I nearly fell into recharge with relief. Then I finally onlined my optics and was met with the sight of a blue skied atmosphere that could only belong to earth, a few leaves were swaying in the wind over me from a surprisingly large tree. It was so peaceful that I almost wanted to lay here for the rest of eternity, just sit here and never have to worry about what others thought of me, never have to worry about being tempted to consume my comrades. But I knew that couldn't happen, also I probably needed to get up. I could hear a few pedd steps coming in my direction and it would be best if I addressed whoever it was in a respectable manner. 

Carefully I sat up, doing so slow enough that the humans would have enough time to adjust accordingly to the shift in gravity. Then I got to me pedds, focusing more on how I was affecting the children than who was approaching me. Once I was sure I was stable enough and the humans would be fine, I finally looked up and was met with the sight of the relatively untouched autobots approaching me. I released a vent of relief, happy they were all okay, finally once my processors caught up with what that implied, I was notified of all the system malfunctions throughout my chassis. 

I staggered, almost falling to my knee plating, my optics flickered ever so slightly and I felt something within my spark chamber (was that my spark?) pulse in what felt like a dying breath. There was this strange wave of fear and remorse that washed over my spark that I knew wasn't mine, It had to be the children, there was no other explanation. So it was my spark that pulsed, I'm no medic, but I'm pretty sure that isn't a good thing. My systems were on overdrive trying to keep me online, and I kept fading in and out of the moment and consciousness.  

Suddenly Optimus was at my side, offering himself to be my crutch, before I could complain, I felt someone's servo's on my neck plating. Then Bulkhead was at my other side and I suddenly went limp. My helm was suddenly looking towards the green grass of this planet I saw it splattered with energon, I also noticed there were many slashes and energon burns across my chassis. A worrisome amount of my energon was flowing out of the injuries.

I heard the faded voice of a worried femme, asking where the children were, I wanted to tell her so bad, I wanted to release my now unintentional hostages, but I couldn't do anything, I couldn't move anything. A wave of pain overcame me and I tried my best to offline my pain receptors, in the process I ended up offlining my optics as well. It felt like it was just for a second, but once I onlined them I was being laid upon a medical berth with Ratchet scrambling for tools.

Once I was finally on the berth, I noticed that the system for my motor functions was back online, and as Ratchet ran up to the side of the berth, I snapped open my chest plates, revealing the dimming spark chamber within, wanting the humans out, for their safety and mine.

There was a moment of stunned silence and no one moved as they witnessed the unharmed humans crawl out of my spark casing. Once I was sure they were safe and out of harm, from the energy of my spark, and potentially getting locked in a sparkless chassis forever. I finally let myself relax, I didn't even bother with closing my chest plates Ratchet might need to access something within, and I drifted into unconsciousness.

___________________________________

I onlined with a start, expecting to be met with the sight of dead comrades and the heaviness of dead beings within my spark chamber. As soon as I saw the ceiling of the medbay and felt that my spark was relatively untouched, I relaxed back onto the berth I knew I was laying upon. Suddenly Ratchet seemingly appeared out of nowhere, which wasn't surprising when you were one of his patients. It took me a second to understand that he was talking to me, and the only way that I knew that was because there was the vibration of sound and his mouth plates were moving. Maybe he had turned off my audio receptors?

As that thought came across me, I was suddenly hit with sound, It almost felt like it had drilled into my helm it was so loud. I quickly turned the sensitivity down, and I was finally able to understand what he was saying.

"-hy he was out there in the first place. The kids seemed to be traumatized by what they experienced. I can only think they would need psychiatric help if you hadn't shielded them, possibly ev-"

Suddenly he stopped talking as he looked at me with a strange expression. I tried to ask him what was wrong, but I couldn't move again. So I just laid there, taking in the fact that I was still online, the kids were safe, and the autobots hadn't killed me, well, they hadn't killed me yet. My thoughts drifted to what may happen in the future as Ratchet seemed to be examining either my chassis or my mental state. I decided to follow him with my optics and I was met with a very concentrated gaze, at the moment I'm 85% sure the medic wished he was a mnemosurgeon, which greatly disturbed me, there is a reason it was banned unless there was clear consent from the recipient. 

Ratchet started to walk around my restrained form and stopped when he got to the head of the berth. He didn't say anything to me as he placed his servo's upon my large helm, and for a klick I was almost convinced that he was going to perform mnemosurgery. The medic seemed to be looking around on the side of my helm, mumbling about different frame types, then suddenly I felt him open the panel on the side of my helm, which I quickly was for my comm as he flipped a switch and my communication system was instantly flooded with messages and old pings of requested communication. 

"There you go. I was wondering why your comm wasn't working." 

Ratchet made sure everything there was in their proper places and carefully closed the panel. He was about to say something else when he stopped himself and seemed to notice something, I couldn't see him anymore as he crouched down to look at something else.

"Fragging Pit, someone forced you into a physical stasis lock, no wonder you haven't moved."

I felt some of my neck cables being moved around, then a spike of pain shot through my chassis as Ratchet cursed.

"Slag, this is going to hurt like a glitch White Eyes, prepare yourself."

I mentally did so as he very quietly counted down and snapped something into it's proper place. It felt like someone had poured lava right into my energon stream, it was liquid pain and once he had finally had it in place, I let out a pitiful yell that was a lot less metalivore sounding than I was expecting. Ratchet seemed pleased for some reason as he had a smug look on his faceplates and the feeling in his field was licking against mine, almost in a teasing sort of way. I had to stop myself from projecting amusement and happiness back. I was one of the very few people that see this side of Ratchet, seeing as we've known each other for so long. But instead I decided to play his little game, just to lighten the mood a little bit.

"Ratchet, what did you do?"

I nearly got mental whiplash as he violently drew his field in and gave me an innocent look.

"I did nothing, what makes you think I would do anything."

Well that didn't help me at all, it was way too vague to get a hint towards what he wanted, but at the moment I decided not to think about it, maybe change the subject to throw him off a bit.

"So I heard you talking about the kids when you came in, where are they now?'

Ratchet suddenly straightened out his field and faceplates, glancing towards the main sections of the base.

"They are with their guardians at the moment. Every time I left the medbay they would ask me how you were doing. They really want to see you."

I was becoming very curious as to why the kids would want to see me when just not too long ago they were afraid I was going to kill them. Something about the expression that Ratchet was throwing me told me that he knew what I was thinking and that it would be best if I let them see me. I exaggeratedly ex-vented and gave him a playful look, and nodded my helm in confirmation. A strange smile kinda broke across his face as I heard an autobot wide ping in my comms. Well frag, everyone is probably going to show up at once now.

My guess was proven half correct as all of the humans quickly came running through, even June and Fowler. The children were running at what seemed like their top speed towards the 13 ft berth. I got internal amusement from it for some reason. Of course Miko was the first one to make it, Ratchet gave her a lift onto the large berth, on the extra space that I didn't occupy.

"White Eyes! I'm so happy you're safe, when your spark flickered like that I thought you were going to die."

Jack and Raf were with her as well now and they were agreeing with her, but Raf seemed like he was still a little out of the loop. As Miko continued to go on about a random topic she had somehow gotten into, I caught a little bit of what she was saying.

"-never knew that's what sparks looked like, I know he told us not to look at it, but I had my sunglasses with me, and I brought an extra pair in case Jack thought it was too bright outside."

There was some complaining on Jack's end about how she knew he was going to follow her, then suddenly there were stopped by Raf.

"C-could you maybe explain what it looked like? I've always wanted to see what a spark looks like."

At his question I became curious as well, not about what a spark looks like, but how it would be explained through human terms by a human. Miko was the first to attempt to answer.

"It was like a mini sun but different, like instead of a normal warmth, it gave off a loving kind of warmth you know?"

It was at this moment I appreciated the fact that cybertronians couldn't blush. Jack decided that wasn't enough and added more.

"Yeah, but it was beautiful, like a whole supernova compacted into this glass ball of light and warmth. It was really weird, I could feel his every emotion, It was almost like I was White Eyes, except I couldn't see or feel anything except his emotions."

I could practically hear Ratchet's amusement, I knew my embarrassment was drifting into my field and he was getting a kick out of it. When they finally changed the subject again, they decided to get comfortable as Miko and Jack leaned against me like we had known each other our whole lives, and Raf was sitting across them. Suddenly I got an idea and I watched the small boy, I studied his body language and compared it to everything I knew and more.

Quickly I concluded my observation was correct, which I was not happy about and I honestly felt guilty about. Very carefully I began to sit up, making sure not to harm the humans that rested upon the metal slab with me, and I directed my attention towards Raf, who was now almost secluding himself from the others. I decided to get his attention.

"Rafael, do you think you would want to talk?"

Something within the boy seemed to change as he looked up to my now standing form, a small, almost sad smile broke across his face. I gave him an understanding look which he seemed happy to receive and got up and walked towards me, I laid my servo flat on the surface for him to climb onto. He had a little trouble, seeing as my servos are bigger than Bumblebee's, and I had to help him a little bit, but once he was situated, we excused ourselves from the medbay. I defaulted towards walking to my berth room as I walked.

Once we arrived to my room, I unlocked the giant metal door and walked in with Raf in servo, the light's turned on at my command and I brought him to my berth and set him on it. I knew we still wouldn't be at a proper conversational height, so I carefully brought myself to the floor and sat down. It was the perfect height to see optic to eye. Raf looked at me and laughed a little bit, making a comment about how this is the first time we can see eye to eye. Once we finally seemed to be settled in from the location change, I decided it would be best not to prolong what I wanted to tell him.

"Rafael, just because you did not experience the same things as your fellow humans, does not mean you have to separate yourself from them."

Raf sighed, and looked away, an almost emotionless expression fell upon his face, which caused my spark to pulse with a feeling that I couldn't explain even if I wanted to. 

"I know but it's hard. I'm just not like the others, they are so comfortable with themselves and they know what they want to do. They are confident in their actions, and I just... I don't know what to do with myself. They are so charismatic and I, i'm just kinda here."

He had said this while keeping his gaze away from mine in what I believed was some sort of shame. Something within me clicked as I looked at Raf, and started to mentally compare him to myself. That is when I realized what was wrong, and that what he needed to hear, is what I needed my whole life.

"Raf, you are different than the others."

That got him to look at me, and I saw some sort of betrayal in his eyes, but I was certain that the things I was about to tell him, would help him, and maybe even make us grow closer.

"But are you sure that's a bad thing? Why is different always seen as bad, the first one that had the alt mode of a vehicle was different, why would that be bad, if anything it makes them better. Everyone is different in their own way, like me, I am the last metalivore, I'm different than everyone else, does that mean it's a bad thing?" 

I could tell that he didn't seem completely convinced, so I continued.

"Okay, think of this, If you truly feel that being different is a bad thing, which it isn't, then isolating yourself would be very counterproductive. Think about it, you are keeping yourself out of the loop by doing that, and then you are different because you don't know something that they do."

I paused to let that sink in a bit, then when I felt he understood, I went on.

"If we weren't different, there would be no individuality, we would be like insecticons to the swarm, we would wear the same thing, we would have the same name, there would be no difference, and life would essentially be meaningless, unless you could break the cycle and start your own individuality. Anyways lets make a comparison at a smaller scale, you are different because you wear glasses, yes. Well then Miko would be different because she has died hair, and Jack would be different because he has blue eyes. If you weren't all different, how would you know who is Miko and who is Raf."

Raf finally seemed to understand what I was getting at and a smile broke across his face. He stood up and practically jumped with joy, I guess he was really happy with this new understanding he was informed of. He asked to be brought back to Miko and Jack so I did so. As I walked through the halls towards the main part of base where the humans were visiting now we passed by Bumblebee who saw how positive Raf was feeling and gave my field a brush of appreciation. I saw the humans conversing together on the balcony like structure and I carefully laid my servo on it and flattened it for the boy to easily get off.

I took a few steps back to give the reuniting humans some room as I thought to myself. I am different than the others, yes, but so is Bulkhead for being clumsy, Bumblebee for being young, Arcee for being withdrawn, Wheeljack for being reckless, and Optimus for being our leader. They all belonged here, they belonged to the autobots and they were all different, they all had their individuality. If they do, well, then so do I.


End file.
